The long holiday weekend was a bloody one for Chicago. It was reported on the Fox 32 (Chicago) website Monday morning that 8 people were killed and at least 20 others wounded in shootings across the city. According to the HeyJackass! website this afternoon, the “Windy City” has tallied 2,750 shootings and 464 homicides year-to-date. Yikes.

Activists who blocked the entrances to stores on North Michigan Avenue on Black Friday to protest the fatal shooting of a black teenager by a white Chicago cop may have split opinions with their tactics.

But their goal of forcing retailers to suffer economic pain on what’s historically the busiest shopping day of the year was a success, according to unhappy store staff and managers who said Monday that Black Friday sales on the Magnificent Mile were 25 percent to 50 percent below projections…

(Editor’s note: Bold added for emphasis)

As if the city of Chicago needed more financial misery heaped on it these days.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy Fired

“I’ve never quit on anything in my life. I’m 56 years old. Don’t expect that to change… The mayor has made it very clear that he has my back…”

While I haven’t been following the activities of the Illinois State Rifle Association for long, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them this worked up about such an issue. From a November 14 Facebook post:

URGENT ALERT –
DO NOT PUT YOUR FAMILY SECURITY ON THE BACK BURNER
EVENTS IN PARIS ARE JUST A WARM UP EXERCISE
YOU MUST ARM AND TRAIN YOUR FAMILY TO ENSURE SURVIVAL

People around the world were treated today to a brutal spectacle having its roots in political naivety, ignorance of history, and wholly misguided immigration policy. Does that sound familiar? It should, because it aptly describes not only to the French government, but the sitting U.S. administration as well.

If you are of the mind of, “…it can’t happen here” then you are sorely deluded. The apparatus to launch a Paris-style bloodbath is already in place here in the United States. All these determined terrorists are waiting for is the go-head from their higher headquarters.

We may be only hours or even moments away from the news that dozens if not hundreds of Americans – just like you and your family – are laying dead or dying in a heap on the floor of some sporting, shopping or entertainment venue. We may be only hours or even moments away from hearing about how the police are looking for “…a few extremists” responsible from the carnage.

It’s not a question as to whether this is going to happen here, because it will. The real question is whether you are prepared to stand and protect what is yours. Are you prepared and able to defend yourself and your family? When the inevitable moment of truth arrives, are you willing to stand and fight or will you be content to play dead – hoping desperately that it is not your day to die?

The survival of you and your family is not mere fodder for some analysis of the war on terror – it’s a cultural imperative. As an American, you are very fortunate that you have a formula for survival and it’s called the Second Amendment. However, the power of any right is directly proportional to how vigorously it is exercised. Left unattended, the rights you enjoy under our Second Amendment will wither away.

To better the chances of survival for you and your family, the Illinois State Rifle Association urges you to do the following:

1. Make sure every person in your family holds a FOID card and that all eligible family members hold Illinois concealed carry permits.
2. Assemble a family defense arsenal consisting of one or more semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15; one or more 12-gauge pump action shotguns, and one or more semiautomatic handguns. If you do not have a family defense arsenal, this is a good weekend to begin putting it together.
3. Be sure that you and every member of your family have had sufficient training in the use and field servicing of the weapons in your family defense arsenal.
4. Be sure that you have sufficient quantities of the proper ammunition on hand to defend your family.
5. Resolve this weekend to get yourself and your family into a physical training regimen. Your physical conditioning may be the difference between life and death during a Paris-style attack.
6. Encourage your extended family and friends to develop plans for protecting self and family from the threat of terror our government takes so lightly.

You have to understand that this is not a battle you can hire someone else to fight for you. When the time comes, you may very well find yourself standing nose to nose with a guy intent upon obliterating you, your culture, and everything you hold sacred.

Are you prepared?

Disturbing. Yet nothing to scoff at, as I too believe it’s only a matter of time before a major terror attack is launched by jihadists against the U.S.

Last Friday I blogged about India’s safe deposit box industry in light of that country’s “currency experiment.” Specifically, I noted the following from a November 26 article on The Economic Times (India) website: Listen carefully and you might hear a creaky, squeaky noise. It is the sound of safe deposit boxes in security vaults across […]

Malca-Amit, “widely recognized as the world’s leader in diamonds, jewellery and precious metals logistics and storage,” recently launched its UltraVault safe deposit box service in Asia. According to the UltraVault website: Our innovative portable safe deposit box enables you to: -View, withdraw or store your assets any time of the day or night -Select the […]

I’ve had India on my mind recently. In particular, I’ve been thinking about the country’s safe deposit box industry in light of the ongoing “currency experiment.” Vikram Doctor over at The Economic Times (India) has also been speculating as to what the blitzkrieg on cash means for safe deposit boxes, publishing a piece entitled “Crackdown […]

Back on February 2 I blogged about James Wesley, Rawles (comma not a typo), an author, lecturer, and founder/Senior Editor of SurvivalBlog.com, a preparedness blog that receives more than 320,000 unique visits per week. The former U.S. Army intelligence officer had just advised SurvivalBlog readers to “get a safe deposit box offshore, and store some […]

Just wanted to wish the American readers of Offshore Safe Deposit Boxes a Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for your continued readership and support (that applies to everyone!). Christopher E. Hill Editor